


Thirteen and Twenty-Five

by ninthlife



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 07:30:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11249160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninthlife/pseuds/ninthlife
Summary: Zap.





	Thirteen and Twenty-Five

_Zap._ Twenty-Five doesn't remember how she got here. Clearing. Woods. "Hello?"

"Yes, I'm right here. We're talking." Handsome man. Velvet coat.

"Nice hair."

"You said that already."

"Well, Thirteen, read a road map and realize I'm a bit behind on the times. Whoo! That was a good one." Trees. Birds. Blue sky. Grey clouds. Snakes in the leaves. Not quite Earth. "Ever used one of these?" She holds up the shiny silver instrument. "Flash drive. You'd know it from, what's it called. X Men. No, X Files. You know the one. MI6? Damn it!" Really strong flash. She turns down the settings. What had she wanted to forge? "With the cowboy and Will Smith?"

Thirteen stares.

"Men in Black! Absolutely genius. You gotta try it sometime. Closest a time lord can get to completely blitzed."

"And these black men are..."

"You, basically. If you were an American government-employed science spy and not a thief-slash-lunatic."

"The opposite of me, then."

"You'd be surprised." _Zap._ If only time lord memory centers weren't so resilient... "You're thirteen lives strong into a white-man-on-Earth streak, for starters."

"For the last time, that is completely random!"

"'Cause you totally know better than me. We spend an awful lot of our early years in easy mode for someone who claims it's 'completely random.'"

"Man isn't 'easy mode!'"

"How do you know? Ever played the other one? How come it's got more letters?"

"Because they're more confusing," the Doctor says, disgruntled.

"That's not charming, you know."

"I'm very charming."

"We benefit hugely from animal magnetism." _Zap._ "Twenty-four. Total deadbeat. Stickler for rules, absolute garbage at chess, won't even talk to me when I come to visit--come to think of it, you might get along. We should all get together for some hits off the flash drive, that'd be the day. How's the hunt for Gallifrey?" _Zap._ The white light flashes again across her face. "Sorry I don't remember, I've got you all kind of... blurred together. With big gaps missing. This prolls doesn't help." _Zap._

"And why would we get along?"

"Are you kidding? You're identical twins."

"Am not. I'm great at chess and I haven't got a rule book."

"Yeah, bud, you're a real rapscallion. But it's not not a rule book just because it isn't written down."

"What, and you want to just--cross time streams, disregard order, and change history?"

"Time streams, rending holes in the fabric of time and space, blah blah blah." Bounce branch. Shake whole tree. "You do realize just how small tears on Earth are? I mean, in a cosmic sense?"

 _"Small?!"_ Incensed. Not endearing. No, not endearing at all. _Zap._ "You do realize that countless lives-"

"Sew?"

"So?! So, I find it terrifying that with age and time, ignorance and brutality--"

"This is the self-righteous shit I am talking about, Mr. Schrodinger's Genocide of two-point-six billion of our own kind. Typical man. _Sew._ I'm saying there's no trouble with tearing holes in the universe if you learn how to sew."

Indignant huff. Contemplative silence. Dignified raising of his chin. "You should have made yourself more clear."

"People love to tell me that." Hand goes to her face, palm pressed against her right eye. "Oh, Jesus. I'm remembering your last attempt. Oh, my God, this is humiliating. Rip it all to pieces and then use superglue. No wonder you don't trust yourself. Water?" Hold out opaque blue bottle.

The Doctor accepts, sips it, and gags. "Is this Pepsi?"

 _"SuperCoke,_ circa 2235. Isn't it awful?" Take it back, swallow four mouthfuls.

"You called it water!"

"Well, there's water in it. Or, it was water once. Does it matter? I eat my apples. As perscribed."

"And I thought I talked nonsense."

"Yes, I'm told that I've never met anyone like me. Bit isolating."

"I'm sorry," and he was.

"Oh, it's fine, I fit right in with a few of us. Haven't found my way there yet, but I do. Don't you miss the scarf? Why not give in? You know we miss the scarf."

"It's a fantastic scarf."

"I mean, I see how you'd think it'd clash with what you've got going on right now. But I think it'd look quite eclectic."

"Looks great on you."

"I certainly think so. It's sexy."

"Silly thing to find sexy."

"I'm a silly thing."

 _Hey!_ says a voice inside her (probably 23), _if you could have sex with yourself, would you consent? You and you, obviously. If you could how many of yourselves do you think you'd have sex with? Do you think it's anything like Sense8?_

 _Zap._ "You got a problem with the name Thirteen?"

"I'm not Thirteen, I'm Ten."

"Oh! Are you? When did that happen?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. You should embrace it. Ten. It's very liberating. Oh, shit, unless you're still repressing memories, then you might be eleven. I understand how this creates confusion."

"I'm not repressing any memories."

"Sure you're not. Ever used a flash drive? Absolutely genius. Men in Black. You gotta try it sometime. Closest a time lord can get to completely blitzed."

"I don't want to be 'blitzed!'"

"So you're not repressing memories! Knew I liked you!"

"Not sure about you, though. There's nothing liberating about identifying as a number."

"Right, right, it's coming back to me. Identity. Self-image. Free will. And of course, our unity of self. As Twenty-five, I'd like to say I feel quite unified. With a unique identity. Yin yang, that hogwash, you know. You are too, if you're ever up to believe me. Thing is, I'm barely past my first trip round, so who the hell knows what I know?" The Doctor opens his mouth. "Not someone who hasn't even completed the fucking clock, so spare me the lecture, Doctor." _Zap._ "Not that you're much of a Doctor."

"And we're back here again."

"Oh, are we? Time is cyclical in nature." _Zap._

"Could you stop doing that?!"

"No." _Zap._ "Forgetting is--well, you know the temptation. But, like I've been saying. Your rules." _Zap._ Low enough setting to be obliterathing teeny details from already half-forgotten places; memory its own form of time travel, jumping suddenly from a high dive into Dark, dark, dark, only dark. "The universe is much easier when you simply start succumbing to the impulse. Admit it. We don't plan. We untangle."

"We learn from experience."

"Learn to do what?"

"Our job."

"Ha! Work. Well. Untangling's not healing. But it passes as work better than troublemaking does."

_"I'M--"_

"A time lord who's got odd rules. One man's intrepid vigilante space invader is another girl's glorified hoover fixer sucker-guy."

"A what?"

"You know, whatever it is. A plumber."

"I'm not sure if I'm sick off all these mixed metaphors or the _SuperCoke."_

"Most likely the metaphors. Humans can manage for months on _SuperCoke_ alone." _Zap._ "Oh, please. You wander into trouble. You bring it with you. You stir it up. You solve it. Save some lives, exterminate others. Investigative pest control."

"And what's wrong with pest control?!"

"Nothin. Pest control's part of the great, natural cycle, and should be respected as a noble profession. Rats carry disease, after all. So you exterminate them." He looks so unsettled at the sound of the word, as he should be. "Let's play 'what's repugnant?!' Calling them rats, or controlling them?"

_23: Lighten up, murderous Mary. Too much time in America._

_Zap._ "It's a tearjerker. Get it from the bartender at the Hanged Elephant. Two lightyears from the restaurant at the end of the universe. Turn left."

"Yee-haw."

"Yee-?"

"Yeah, genius, the SuperCoke? Some detective. Point is, you're not a doctor, Doctor."

"Oh? Then what am I? According to 'you.'"

"You're a dancer."

"Why?"

"I know, not nearly as catchy. But your free will god complex fucks with fate way more than just giving up to the flow, I promise you."

"Choosing--"

"Lev, an incarnation from now, you willy-nilly restart Earth's timeline like it's a car battery."

"So much for spoilers."

"Yeah, we get over those. You're over 'em already, but we regress, that's part of it. Spoilers don't matter when nobody can keep up, and this is the universe." That hair, those shoes... "Snape kills Dumbles, btw."

"...Who?"

"That'll destroy you, eventually. All in the timing."

"This is ridiculous."

"You're a ridiculous man. And I notice you're still dodging the end of civilization."

"You won't let me get a word in edgewise! And I'm incredibly inconsistent, I can hardly tell who I am!"

"Well, what can I say? I'm from the future. You're lucky I haven't got the impulse to hijack this whole timeline, 'cause I totally could."

"Don't pretend like that's not the exact reason you're here."

"Because it's a timecrime to hide out in my own goddamn backstory. Thanks for the trust and hospitality, Mr. Supercoke."

"I'm not a--"

"Doctor. Or a hotel manager, to your credit. 'Scary handsome genius from space,' I'm still fond of." _Zap._ "To be terribly honest with you, I don't remember if I've met you or not because I haven't met you. Memory blackout. I've just escaped; I might be here to find out what I've forgot."

"And how'd you get here?"

"That's how I got here. Time travel can be very solipsistic, you know. Or maybe you don't. Like I said. Depending on my background your future self makes some questionable decisions. You keeping up?"

"But you remember the scarf?"

"Of course I remember the scarf! I know this isn't your school of thought, but this scarf is written into the strings of our universe. Well, and then some."

"You know, when you showed up, I thought you knew everything."

"Did I? Maybe I do. One of the finest arts of space piracy is not understanding what you're doing until you've already done it."

"You think we're--"

"Well, aren't we?"

The pirate considers this. He doesn't look unhappy.

"Maybe we should find this Rose person," 25 says, biting casually into an apple. "No idea what Bad Wolf is. Assuming that's a bad sign."

"Terrible," says the Doctor.

"Fantastic," says 25.


End file.
